PHP Filesystem basename() Function

---

---

The PHP Filesystem basename() function allows you to extract only the name of a file from a whole path. It is commonly used to extract a filename from a complete path string.

The primary goal of basename() is to extract the path's trailing name component while ignoring previous directory names.

Assume you know a file's entire address, like "C:/documents/picture.jpg". If you simply want the "picture.jpg" filename, you can use basename() for this.

Syntax

Below is the syntax of the PHP Filesystem basename() function −

string basename ( string $path [, string $suffix ] )

Parameter

The parameters are needed to use the basename() function are mentioned below −

Return Value

It returns the extracted filename as a string.

PHP Version

The basename() function is part of the PHP core and is available in PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, and PHP 8.

Example

In this example we will use the PHP Filesystem basename() function to simply extract the filename provided in the path and print the filename with extension and without extension. So we will use basename() to remove the filename component from the path before giving it to the $file variable.

<?php

   // specify the directory path here
   $path = "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/index.php";

   //  $file is set to "index.php"
   $file = basename($path);  

   // This will print "Full file name: index.php"
   echo "Full file name: " . $file . "<br&gt"; 

   // $file is set to "index"
   $file = basename($path, ".php");  

   // This will print "File name without extension: index"
   echo "File name without extension: " . $file; 

?>

Output

This will produce the following result −

Full file name: index.php
File name without extension: index

Example

Now we will handle different file extensions using basename() function. So here we can handle different file extension using this function. The basename() function will get the file name without its extension for each path mentioned in the code.

<?php
   // specify the directory path here
   $path1 = "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/index.php";
   $path2 = "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/myfile.txt";
   $path3 = "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/logo.gif";

   // Filename without extension: php
   echo "Filename without extension: " . basename($path1, ".php") . "<br>"; 

   // Filename without extension: text
   echo "Filename without extension: " . basename($path2, ".txt") . "<br>"; 

   // Filename without extension: gif
   echo "Filename without extension: " . basename($path3, ".gif") . "<br>"; 

?> 

Output

This will produce the below outcome −

Filename without extension: index
Filename without extension: myfile
Filename without extension: logo

Example

Handling URLs most likely refers to a specific example of how to handle URLs that include query parameters. So parse the URL to get the path using parse_url() function, then use basename() to extract and print the file name.

<?php
   // specify the directory path here
   $url = "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/index.php?version=1";

   // Parse the URL to get the path
   $parsed_url = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);

   // Use basename() on the path to get the file name
   $filename = basename($parsed_url);

   echo "Filename: " . $filename;
?> 

Output

This will lead to the following outcome −

Filename: index.php

Example

So the basename() function can also handle the filenames with multiple dots in it. So simply we need to pass the directory path in the basename() to have this functionality.

Below is the simple demo of this example −

<?php
   // specify the directory path here
   $path = "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/mac/file.with.dots.txt";

   // use basename() function to extract the filename
   $filename = basename($path);

   // Output: Filename: file.with.dots.txt
   echo "Filename: " . $filename; 
?> 

Output

This will produce the following result −

Filename: file.with.dots.txt

Summary

The PHP basename() function is a really useful functionality used to extract the file name part of a given path string. Actually, it offers an option to the user for removing any specified suffix from being extracted at the end.